[Week Of Awesome] My Game Reviews.

Published August 26, 2013
Advertisement
if you don't know about this competition, who made the games, or where to download them, see this post:
https://www.gamedev.net/topic/646780-the-week-of-awesome-unofficial-gdnet-competition/

I am no judge, but i decided to judge the games the same way the other judges are suppose to, so without further ado, here are my reviews:

Granny v.s. zombie dinosaurs:

This game is well done, you'd think being an elderly person, with a cane that also doubles as a gun woudn't be very interesting, but the overall quality was quite high in my opinion. The graphics work surprisingly well for being mostly white/black, the pace that you move at first seems slow, then seems...right. the shear amount of ammo you get in the beginning at first seems like overkill, and honestly, it kindof is. but you soon find yourself going through most of it. I reached the stegosaurus(my final score was ~1600) before i lost dear granny smith. but none the less, the game was quite enjoyable.

Graphics: 18/20 - fit the gameplay very well, didn't leave much to anything to be desired, my only complaint would be to make the background scroll as well.
Audio: 15/20 - bullets sounded like bullets, although their were some random dinosaur screams(not sure if this meant they spawned, or were just their for the added factor).
Gameplay/fun: 17/20 - the pace is good, the action is nice, and the increasing number of varying dino's was good.
First Time User Experiance(FTUE): 20/20 - extremly easy to pick up and understand.
Theme: 15/20 - it's not that they went extict, they just came back as zombies....65 million years later!(that's gatta be some serious lag)

Total: 85/100

Dinorace:
Bet on dinosaur racing! I don't know if humans, or other dinosaurs are setting up the races, but whatever. so, this is a pretty simple gambling type game. graphics are very simple, but get the point across. as far as i can tell, it's all keyboard control, which isn't a bad thing for this game. the races can be a bit close, but in my experience, it's hard to get a lower dinosaur to win. you can also sabotage one dinosaur to try and fix the race to a more profitable bet(which i didn't really figure out the bet ratios?) the saboteurs can also lie to you, and not do their job. overall, it's simple, and can be addicting if you've got that type of personality.

Graphics: 12/18 - I feel like this could have been solely a console game, but they fit for this type of gameplay style.
Audio: 18/20 - the background music is quite fitting for this game.
Gameplay/fun: 15/20 - it does what it's suppose to, i might be a bit biased as these type of games bore me quickly, but i can appreciate it.
FTUE: 15/20 - while easy to understand, the ratio system could be better explained in my opinion.
Theme: 12/20 - it has dinosaurs, and they clearly never went extinct, so we just used them for gambling!

Total: 72/100

Other note: i'd prefer the zip/rar file, rather than downloading an exe to unzip if for me.

Human Roundup:
I did not play this one very long. i made it to the second stage, then a stupid human kept running into the cactus, and i kept failing, after the fourth time, i gave up. the concept is simple, and interesting, you are a dinosaur whom herds humans into their pens. the music is very fitting for this game. I found it easier to run around the humans to herd them, then try to use the roar. it was quite easy to figure out what to do, and being able to change controls to w/a/s/d is a nice touch for us laptop users.

Graphics: 14/20 - the humans seem decently animated, but the dinosaur doesn't, which i found kindof odd. other than that the tiles were well placed.
Audio: 18/20 - the music/human screams(although a bit loud)/roar were very fitting for the game.
Gameplay/fun: 10/20 - while the gameplay is interesting, having such dumb ai made it difficult to want to advance much further into the game.
FTUE: 16/20 - it was relativly easy to pick this game up, and figure out what to do, controls are simple, and the idea is well executed.
Theme: 17/20 - humans still evolved, but clearly the dinosaurs have been around for a much longer time then our primitive ancestors.

Total: 75/100

Hobos of Pangea:
I played a couple rounds with the web player version, the concept is simple, go and hunt humans. the environment felt a bit lacking(the post said their were 4 maps, but they just seem to be tile palette changes, with a few random trees here and their). I'm not sure what the challenge is, as i just rode around shooting...humans? monkeys? i have no idea what i was killing. actually, i have no idea what i was riding. but i did know i was a raptor, and that's ok. one other issue was that the character is suppose to point toward the mouse i assume, but it seemed to get de-synced very easily.

Graphics: 10/20 - the raptor was well modelled, everything else could use a bit more work, and the ground was kindof patched together.
Audio: 16/20 - music fit well, sound effects worked well.
Gameplay/fun: 12/20 - i didn't encounter any type of challenge while playing, it was pretty much just shoot at the humans.
FTUE: 15/20 - very easy to figure out what to do, but the mouse de-syncs got me questioning my sanity until i played a second round.
Theme: 18/20 - it clearly fits the theme.

Total: 68/100

Dino Tamer:
Run around, and beat up dinosaurs to tame them(except the brontosaurus(i think that's what they are called)), as it seemed to just die, and never get tamed. it took a bit to figure out what the hell i was doing, the instructions don't make it clear that you have to hit them correctly with your hand. Also, my tamed dinosaurs died very quickly, and i never really built up an army or anything.

Graphics: 8/20 - i truly have no idea what was going on in terms of graphics, i can't say i'd do much better, but they just seemed to be scanned in or something.
Audio: 12/20 - while their is music/sound effects, i didn't feel like they flowed with the game very will.
Gameplay/fun: 15/20 - i did find myself playing for a good bit, but with the same 3/4 dinosaurs appearing, i got bored after a bit.
FTUE: 10/20 - their is an explanation of how to move/attack, but it still took a bit to figure out what the heck i was doing.
Theme: 14/20 - it's got dinosaurs!

Total: 59/100

Rex and the city:
Edit: got a folder from cornstalks with it all together.
So rex and the city is a rather simple game, you are a t-rex tasked with killing everything that gets in your way. I made it to the tanks before being killed, as their seemed to be no way to avoid the missiles(you duck into them, and you can't jump over them). every tank managed to get off at least one missile at me, so i died pretty quickly after they showed up. the second time around, i figured out how to kill the tanks quickly, and managed to get 100 points to destroy the city(although i really only destroyed the military).

Graphics: 16/20 - the graphics were pretty well done for this game.
Audio: 14/20 - the audio is their, their are a couple sound effects missing(such as no sound when you use your tail, or stomp on the ground after jumping.
Gameplay/Fun: 16/20 - overall the game is pretty fun, but it feels like it could have been an endless thing, rather than just 5 levels.
FTUE: 15/20 - relatively easy to pick up, but figuring out how to kill tanks effectivly took a second play through.
Theme: 14/20 - it has a dinosaur!

Total: 75/100
Dino Flight:
This is an infinite runner style game. The pterodactyl could use a bit of animation(really just make it flap damit!), but other than that, it was an decent runner game. my big gripe is that you can die instantly by running into a plane, but because of how the camera is setup, it's very difficult to judge where you need to be to avoid the plane/gun fire. it could defiantly use some refinement in my opinion.

Graphics: 15/20 - things look nice and pretty, but it could use a bit more animating of the players dinosaur..
Audio: 16/20 - sound effects sound right, and the background fits.
Gameplay/fun: 13/20 - it works for what it does, it's just very difficult, and you tend to die quickly.
FTUE: 16/20 - the big text in the beggining makes it evident on how you play, but learning about the instant k/o when hitting a plane is always a shock.
Theme: 14/20 - while you are a dinosaur, i'm really not sure if your just some clone or something(also, is this post-apocalypse world or something?)

Total: 74/100

Big Game Hunt:
Big game hunt is a pretty simply game. you click where to shoot, and kill the...dinosaurs?(i assume they were suppose to be dinoaurs, but change the black ones to white...and the game becomes a bit....naughtier...imo;-) ) so, it's wave based, they attack you or...run into the top right corner? i really have no idea why they were attracted to either me or that corner, but w/e. i played to wave 15 before i got bored and quit. it's very simple, unless it get's much harder later on.

Graphics: 10/20 - simple graphics, with 1 colored dinosaur(at least as far as i saw), and again black->white would change the entire concept imo;-).
Audio: 15/20 - shooting sounds like shooting, background music was soothing.
Gameplay/fun: 14/20 - i feel like it could have been more challenging, but i was well into the 200+ points before i stopped playing.
FTUE: 12/20 - didn't 100% understand what i was doing right off the back, but i picked it up pretty quickly.
Theme: 10/20 - it has...dinosaurs...i think.

Total: 71/100

Note: i just looked at the readme, apparently you can move, i just sat in the center shooting them.

No Better than dinosaurs:
This....was an interesting game....the graphics were very well done, but the game is incredibly short, and their really is nothing to do. also, i don't think you could stand on the tree when it's falling like that.

Graphics: 18/20 - this was pretty top-notch.
Audio: 18/20 - The audio flowed well for the game.
Gameplay/fun: 5/20 - their really was no gameplay for the most part.
FTUE: 14/20 - without the instructions on the web page, i had no idea how to open the door in the first room.
Theme: 14/20 - it's a world where dinosaurs never went extinct(or at least that's what we are told, we don't actually see any present day dinosaurs.)

Total: 69/100

Get To work:
could not get to stay started. then i started it through command prompt, and it worked, not sure why. anywho, this game started out a bit confusing, i didn't realize i had to time my sprinting with the ball in the center. but the ball moves very quickly, and i died...alot. still it was pretty fun, and i played for a few rounds. i could see this being on mobile platforms very easily(edit: actually, theirs apparently a android version).

Graphics: 20/20 - the graphics were very nice, the dinosaur was well detailed, and it was always humerus seeing my head get bitten off.
Audio: 16/20 - music flowed nicely.
Gameplay/fun: 14/20 - the concept is a simple runner, it can only hold my attention for so long, but it was also rather difficult to keep track of sprinting, and dodge cars. also, if you failed at a sprint, it seemed like the dinosaur caught you very quickly.
FTUE: 10/20 - their is a nice explanation of how to play when you click new game, but it doesn't mention anything about the bar, took me 3 deaths to realize how to play.
Theme: 14/20 - it has dinosaurs.

Total: 74/100

Dino Road trip:
This game, would work very nicely as a mobile game. the graphics were lovely, it was easy to figure out how to play(although i'm not sure if i can destroy rocks with my tail or not). and the turbo mode is pretty damn awesome. overall this was fun to play for a bit, and what isn't funner than getting some pent up road rage out of your system=-) (also, who keeps driving toward a dinosaur?!)

Graphics: 18/20 - the graphics were very well done.
Audio: 17/20 - audio flowed nicely with the gameplay, sound effects were good.
Gameplay/fun: 17/20 - it can get quite addicting in my opinion.
FTUE: 17/20 - easy to pick up, instructions in the beginning are quite clear, although learning how to eat humans correctly took a few tries.
Theme: 16/20 - since people simply stand around/drive around dinosaurs, i can only assume this isn't out of the normal for this world.

Total: 85/100

Dinosaurs only live once:
This was a fun little game, not very challenging, as the tourists seem to ski by one at a time, and only near the bottom of the screen(or at least that was the case for me. you ski back and forth picking up purple fruit, it's all rather silly and humerous. =-)

Graphics: 15/20 - the graphics fit well for this game.
Audio: 14/20 - this felt kindof like lounge music.
Gameplay/fun: 15/20 - it works, and is rather decent.
FTUE: 19/20 - it doesn't get much simplier.
Theme: 15/20 - it has dinosaurs!...that ski!

Total: 78/100

Raptor Ace:
This game was rather interesting, i only played the first level though. the quality is very good, the flight mechanics could use some tweaking(i can fly straight up, and upside down if i keep holding down/up, but not roll?) also, it'd be interesting if it was more like flying a real bird, rather than a plane that looks like a pterodactyl. so you fly around, take out other pterodactyl's, and then drop off your guys in their targeted area. had a few issues with this, mostly that missing the target, meant failure, then having to sit for a couple minutes, because you are started so far away from the dang target! i failed 3 times trying to drop the guy into the target(until i realized i could use the minimap to guide me to "stay on target"). the t-rex commander/cut scene is funny/nice addition, and i don't know what might lie beyond if i could play it to completion, but alas that's my take on it. O, and the enemy ai wasn't half bad either.

Graphics: 16/20 - looks pretty decent, a fair bit of work was put in the pterodactyl, but the island was pretty lacking in textures.
Audio: 15/20 - everything sounded right.
Gameplay/fun: 15/20 - not a bad plane flying game, but it could use some tweaks to the actual flying mechanics to better distinguish itself imo.
FTUE: 16/20 - it was pretty easy to pick up how to play, just trying to actually land the guy in the right spot is annoying.
Theme: 18/20 - it sounds like they are still ganna go extinct though=-).

Total: 80/100
The legend of Raptor:
This is my game, and i would probably be a tad biased....

DNALabs:
This is an iOS game, although my iphone is jailbroken, i really don't feel like going through the hassle right now.
Dilophosaurus Decision:
This was the most interesting game that i think came out of this competition. The idea is rather simple, you are left to make an important decision about the future of your village. you talk to each member of your clan, and then make a decesion. While i think their is alot of possibility's with this idea, it seems like it could have used some more polish/time. i'm never made clear on what would happen with each decisions, conversation tree's seem to be available that imply i had already talked to someone else. However reading over SotL's posts, he seemed to be in a similar boat as me for time usage. overall it was an decent game, although not exactly my cup of tea, i suspect their will be others who find it more enjoyable.

Graphics: 17/20 - the graphics were fairly well done, although the text was difficult to read at times.
Audio: 16/20 - the background audio/effects were nice, and soft.
Gameplay/fun: 12/20 - i might be somewhat biased against these type of games, their is an idea here, and it is executed, but i don't find much enjoyment reading over alot of text.
FTUE: 14/20 - it took me a little bit to realize what was going on, and who was talking.
Theme: 17/20 - dinosaurs, and humans co-existing. 65 million years, and humans are still apparantly ahead of dinosaurs=-)

Total: 76/100

Final Ranking:
Granny v.s. zombie dinosaurs - 85
Dino Road trip - 85
Raptor Ace - 80
Dinosaurs only live once - 78
Dilophosaurus Decision - 76
Human Roundup - 75
Rex and the city - 75
Dino Flight - 74
Get To work - 74
Dinorace - 72
Big Game Hunt - 71
No Better than dinosaurs - 69
Hobos of Pangea - 68
Dino Tamer - 59
3 likes 7 comments

Comments

Servant of the Lord

Thanks for the review! I had to disable the part of the code that unlocked the dialog choices, when it stopped working an hour before the deadline. :)

And the ending dialog, unfortunately, was slapped together in the 15 minutes right towards the end.

August 26, 2013 12:57 PM
Oberon_Command

Thanks for the review! On the subject of the flight model: it's supposed to be unrealistic. The game is heavily inspired by the Star Fox and Star Wars: Rogue Squadron N64 games, which both had very "arcade-y" flight mechanics. I would say that our game was supposed to be a bit of a "nostalgia trip" for fans of those games (and ourselves in particular) at least in terms of the gameplay. Also, if you'd gotten to the second level, you'd have been able to do barrel rolls, which lets you control your roll axis.

August 26, 2013 04:26 PM
slicer4ever

@Oberon_Command, i see, i wasn't sure if you just didn't have enough time to really refine the flight mechanics, or that was simply how you intended them to be. I would have like to play more, but i had to get to more of the games to review.

@SotL, that's unfortunate, i still got the jist of what was said even when the dialog was out of order, but i can understand the issues you faced with time=-).

Cornstalk added all the projects to his google drive, so i grabbed Rex and the city, and did a review. i'm probably not going to get to DNALabs though(although i do want to try an dino-themed rts).

August 26, 2013 05:07 PM
shadowisadog

Thank you for the review! I think the review was spot on and exactly what I was aiming for. The music was fully intentional just to fit the ridiculous tone of the game.

I do agree about the game being too easy. I kept trying to tweak the mechanics but I ran low on time :( .

I may revist the concept and add some powerups and make the game a bit more difficult (maybe add some other obstacles). I am a fan of simple to play games :) .

August 27, 2013 01:56 AM
ryan20fun

Thank's for the review!

Yes the black things were ment to be dinosaurs.

There was another dinosaur as well with a default spawn chance of 25%.

The reason they were attracted to you is because will looking for them, you tripped and spilt bait all over your-self.

You put my game above dinorace, is that a mistakce ?

August 27, 2013 05:46 AM
slicer4ever

Thank's for the review!

Yes the black things were ment to be dinosaurs.

There was another dinosaur as well with a default spawn chance of 25%.

The reason they were attracted to you is because will looking for them, you tripped and spilt bait all over your-self.

You put my game above dinorace, is that a mistakce ?

i got why they were attracted to me(re-reading what i wrote, it was poor wording in the review, sorry), i didn't understand why they were also attracted to the top left corner as well.

i did see the other dinosaur, but the black ones being so.....interestingly designed....stood out to me ;-).

and yes, that was an accidental mistake, i've edited it to fix it, thanks.

August 27, 2013 09:21 PM
tisdadd

Thank you very much for the reviews. As you guessed, my graphics (Dino Tamer) were scanned in... but with a camera... from a white board.

Now that I have my computer up and running again, I am hoping to have plenty of time to play everyone else's games as well, which should all be much better than mine. :P

Also, as you gave the gameplay better than I would have expected, I may have my sound/graphics friend take a look once he gets back... and implement other ideas that if he had been around I may have had time to implement (triceratops shooting horns, more level types, ect)... as I started Wednesday afternoon, and found out he was leaving that day I spent probably 2 days on graphics, hit detection lining up with graphics, and sound... not really my specialty areas.

I am just happy that I finally was able to take time to make a game based off my understanding of the Component Entity System.

August 28, 2013 04:47 PM
You must log in to join the conversation.
Don't have a GameDev.net account? Sign up!
Advertisement
Advertisement